It took them thirty-six years to come up with a sequel to Beetlejuice. After decades of false starts, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, and the gang have finally reunited (along with producer Brad Pitt!) with decidedly uneven (but mostly enjoyable) results.
After the death of her father, Lydia (Winona Ryder) returns home for the funeral with her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) and boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) in tow. Meanwhile, Beetlejuice (Keaton) is busy ducking his evil ex-wife (Monica Bellucci) who wants to suck his soul. When Astrid gets stuck in the afterlife, Lydia grudgingly turns to Beetlejuice for help.
Burton’s M.O. for this movie seems to have been “Turn on the juice and see what shakes loose”. There are way too many characters, subplots (there’s enough plot here for three movies), and random asides. It also suffers from some abrupt changes in tone (especially the stuff with Astrid’s boyfriend). Then again, the original wasn’t exactly a model of coherence.
The film is at its weakest when it’s making callbacks to the original. (The “Day-O” inspired scene featuring “MacArthur Park” comes to mind.) However, the random bits of sheer lunacy have Tim Burton’s fingerprints all over them. I mean, how many thirty-six years later sequels have a scene inspired by Mario Bava (in Italian no less!), a stop-motion cartoon, and a tribute to It’s Alive? Because of that, it’s kind of hard to be too picky.
Keaton easily slips back into the iconic role and sure enough, the striped suit still fits him like a glove. Ortega is fine, and Ryder is pretty good too, but it’s Justin Theroux who steals the movie as her New Agey boyfriend. Willem Dafoe gets some laughs too as an afterlife cop. Bellucci looks amazing as Beetlejuice’s stapled together bride, but unfortunately there are long stretches of the movie where the plot kind of forgets about her.
The funniest running gag though has got to be the extreme lengths they go through to include Jeffery Jones’ character from the original without actually including him.
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